


still my heart this moment

by soulgraves



Series: Blam Week 2016 Fills [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, M/M, Minor Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 10:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8398966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulgraves/pseuds/soulgraves
Summary: Sam died in the eighties.[For Blam Week 2016, Day 4: Magic/Fairytale AU.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a ghost story in that it's a story about ghosts. Please take note of the Major Character Death warning and run away if that's going to upset.
> 
> This is another one of those "what am I doing?" ideas that's also sort of a Casper rip off if Casper were far angstier and involved a potentially sentient ghost house. Um.
> 
> Enjoy?

 

**~**

 

The _For Sale_ sign on the front lawn’s been there so long it takes them weeks to notice it’s changed, a giant _Sold_ sticker thumped on top at an awkward angle and Rachel running through the halls shouting.

“New owners,” she says, eyes glittering, and Sam smiles and nods and doesn’t tell her not to get her hopes up. Santana will do enough of that later.

“New owners,” he says, and tries not to be so jaded as to think _‘it won’t change anything.’_

 

**~**

 

“So,” the first guy says, spinning around to take in the foyer, “what do you think?” He doesn’t wait for a response before continuing. “Isn’t it _amazing?_ I can’t believe what a steal it was. I mean, sure, there’s some fixing up to be done, and we’ll need to completely redecorate, but that’s the fun part!” 

The other guy, smaller and wearing a dark wool coat against the chill, doesn’t look so sure. His eyes dart around, and Sam presses back into the shadows even though he knows he can’t be seen; he sees Quinn do the same across the room and thinks, _‘Oh good, another one.’_

“I don’t know,” the guy says. “Kurt, doesn’t it feel a bit… _strange?_ ”

“Blaine,” Kurt says, “don’t be ridiculous. You’re starting to sound like Brittany. Anyway, let me show you where I want to put the armoire we saw last week…”

He drifts off into the dining room, dragging Blaine along by the hand.

 _‘Here we go again,’_ Sam thinks, and wonders if this time it’ll end in chaos or tragedy.

 

**~**

 

The House dates back to the late 1800s (and Santana has some choice words about the folks who built it) so it’s mostly made up of turrets and ironwork. The veranda circles it completely, and there’s a clock tower that’s blocked off by rotting wood, only accessible via the attic that someone last tried to convert in the seventies.

It’s a gothic monstrosity that people either love or hate.

( It doesn’t always work out so great for the ones that love it. )

 

**~**

 

There are a lot of guests.

It starts with the parents, hauling boxes and furniture and mattresses, and the four of them stand on the top floor landing and stare down, switching between silence and commentary.

“Is that a giant?” Santana says as one of the guests struggles to fit through the drawing room door.

“I think that’s the brother,” Rachel says, twirling a piece of hair through her fingers and looking disturbingly moony-eyed.

“I thought the brother was the one who looked like one of Rachel’s movie stars?” Quinn says, frowning, and Rachel shakes her head.

“No, he’s the other brother.”

“Which brother belongs to which guy?” Sam says, and Santana shrugs.

“Who cares,” she says. “Wanna go blow the bulbs in the attic?”

“Sure,” Sam says, because, well…they’re dead.

They’ve got to get their fun where they can.

 

**~**

 

Finn — Kurt’s brother, apparently, or step-brother or something — brings back beer and pizza when they’ve finished and everyone’s cleared out, all awkward limbs as he sits in one of the over-stuffed armchairs Kurt’s put on either side of the fireplace. 

“I love him,” Rachel sighs from her vigil on the bottom step. “Do you think he’d love me?”

“I thought you were all about you career?” Sam says, sitting next to her on the stairs and wrapping an arm around the bannister.

Rachel rolls her eyes. “Of course I am, but behind every great woman is a man ready to hold her purse whilst she signs autographs. So, career, love, why can’t I have both?”

 _Because you’re dead_ , Sam doesn’t say.

“No reason,” he says instead, and Rachel flips her hair and goes to sit a little closer.

 

**~**

 

“Do you think they’ll plant flowers?” Quinn asks. The iron swing at the bottom of the garden is almost as old as the house, and Sam wonders if it’s always been Quinn’s, in life and in death, as she curls her fingers around the bars and pushes gently until her feet skim the overgrown grass.

“Maybe,” he says, and Quinn smiles.

“As long as they don’t plant myrtle blossom,” she says, and Sam doesn’t know what that is but he thinks of the dried bouquet in her room and doesn’t question in. “Roses would be nice. Roses are always nice.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Or sunflowers.”

Quinn laughs and asks him to push her higher.

 

**~**

 

“I was going to be a star,” Rachel says, and sometimes Sam’s worried she’s been here too long, that time has begun stretching her too thin, and sometimes he wonders if she repeats it so often because it’s the only mantra that keeps her anchored.

She’d died in 1935, nineteen years old and sure she was going to be the next Claudette Colbert. Sam had no idea who that was, but Rachel’s shown him her scrapbooks over the years; he’s tried to repay the favor but she frowns when he turns the radio up, and starts singing old show tunes so loudly he has to turn it off again before Quinn starts throwing things down the stairs.

“I was going to be _star_ ,” she says, and somehow he always believes her.

 

**~**

 

Santana’s the only one of them older than The House.

She still has a gun in the holster strapped to her thigh, but it’s been out of bullets for well gone a century. 

( “I used to keep one in there,” she’d said once, when Sam had been new, “just in case.”

“Just in case?” he’d asked, looking around for whatever threat could be lurking close enough to scare someone like her.

“Just in case it’d get me out of this godforsaken place,” she’d said, and Sam hadn’t asked again. )

Sometimes she disappears and doesn’t materialize for days, weeks, months, but she always comes back even if she doesn’t look happy about it. It makes Quinn smile in relief, though, and that’s enough for Santana to kick her boots up on the dining room table and make up dreadful songs about them all just to make Quinn laugh. Sam doesn’t understand them much; sometimes they’re screaming insults and sometimes they’re whispering into each other’s ear, but he puts it down to them being closest in age and leaves well alone.

He worries about what will happen when Santana disappears and _doesn’t_ come back.

He doesn’t think any of them are ready for things to be that quiet.

 

**~**

 

There’s been more of them over the years.

Sam remembers Mercedes and Jesse and Puck, who’d burnt himself out in a flickering wave of anger and frustration and violence as they’d watched on, helpless, and the others have told him stories of those that came before him.

He knows everything’s temporary, it’s just that temporary isn’t an accurate measure of anything.

 

**~**

 

Sam’s eavesdropping.

Or, you know, just _listening_ since no one can see him so it’s totally cool if he just curls up on the empty couch.

Kurt has friends round, a handful of overdressed people who talk over each other more often than not and seem to have a lot of opinions about clothes. Most of it goes completely over Sam’s head, but the other stuff, the _gossip_ , is pretty timeless.

“I know I’m not the voice of knowledge about this,” Quinn says, sitting gracefully on the couch next to him and folding her hands over her lap, “what with my husband murdering me on my wedding night and all, but should he really be talking about another man that much when his paramour’s one room over?”

She’s right. Blaine’s in the kitchen, putting together all these fiddly little finger foods Kurt brought home with him, and Kurt’s holding court in the drawing room and keeps mentioning this guy called Adam who everyone else apparently also knows, and Sam’s sort of mad on Blaine’s behalf, even though it doesn’t sound like Kurt’s actually _cheating_.

“Yeah,” he says instead. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s, like, a cousin or something. Maybe he’s super old.”

“There’s nothing wrong with an older man,” Quinn says. “Heaven knows if I’d married Jacques Grover _he_ would never have had the upper body strength to throw me over a balcony.”

“Sorry your husband turned out to be an asshole,” Sam says, and Quinn gives him that little smile that means he’s said something right.

“Food’s ready,” Blaine calls, cutting Kurt off mid story, and Kurt look annoyed rather than grateful, which Sam thinks is a pretty douche move.

“Well,” Kurt says, collecting himself. “Shall we?”

 

**~**

 

Sam died in the eighties, which would be obvious to anyone who could actually see him. Blue denim jeans, oversized pink t-shirt sporting the name of a band no one’s heard of in thirty years, and the stupid small gold hoop in his ear he’s regretted since the decade rolled over. His hair’s just a bit too long and styled to look like he just rolled out of bed, and his sneakers are…well, he’s pretty sure his sneakers will _always_ be awesome.

At least he didn’t have them long enough in life for them to look worn.

( The thing is, if he’d died on a Saturday he’d have been wearing his usual plaid shirt with a pair of work boots and he wouldn’t have had the earring in for fear of his mom’s wrath.

He’d only been wearing the outfit ‘cause it was the sort of thing all the kids wore, and starting a new school with only three months of senior year left was hard enough without standing out.

He thinks about that decision a lot. )

 

**~**

 

Blaine and Kurt both work — something to do with music and fashion respectively — so they’re out of the house on weekdays. 

In Sam’s opinion, that is the perfect time to snoop. New owners mean new _stuff_ , and since they can’t leave the boundaries of The House, it’s the only time they really have to catch up on the world. Santana and Quinn are suckers for TV, something Sam’s sure is increased by the lack of it when they were alive, and Rachel thinks Kurt’s magazines and records are the best thing since sliced bread.

Sam though?

Sam finds Blaine's comic book collection and genuinely wonders if he’s finally made it to heaven.

 

**~**

 

It’s a Thursday when Kurt finds Santana’s small amount of stuff and tries to throw it out. It’s bad enough that people keep redecorating their rooms, but the loose floorboards are supposed to be a safe place for the few things that came with them to the afterlife. 

( Sam’s consists of a pair of neon orange headphones, his Walkman WM-DD, a pack of gum, twelve dollars, a sheet of tickets long enough to win him the small robot at the arcade, a slightly battered copy of Detective Comics #536, and his wallet, complete with drivers license, school I.D., and the credit card he was only ever supposed to use in case of emergencies.

It’s nothing, but it’s _his_. )

Santana screams and screams as the lights begin to flicker and the house creaks with rage.

“What the _hell?_ ” Kurt says, dropping the bundle in his arms and practically running from the room, straight into Blaine who’s come to check on the commotion.

“I told you this place was strange,” Blaine says, but even he’s turning pale.

“I refuse to believe my house is haunted,” Kurt says, like the echo of Santana’s anger isn’t still bouncing off the walls. “I am going to get my jacket and we’re going to go out for sushi and when we get home we’ll have stopped letting our imaginations run away with us.”

He walks off with all the dignity his fear can allow, and Sam goes to Santana to try and calm her down, Quinn appearing at his elbow, and expects Blaine to follow Kurt as quickly as he can.

Instead, Blaine reaches down and picks up Santana’s hip flask and faded letters and gun cleaning rag and places them neatly on the cabinet in the corner.

“Sorry,” he says quietly to the room.

Even Santana goes still at that.

 

**~**

 

In their experience, there’s three types of people.

  1. The non-believers who move in and ignore all the strange stuff, and eventually leave for ‘greener pastures’ aka somewhere that’s not most definitely haunted.
  2. The eventual believers who think they can brush it all off and eventually become so terrified they have to send moving companies back for their belongings because there’s no chance in hell they’re ever crossing back over the threshold.
  3. The super believers who get a hint of ‘ghosts’ and immediately think they belong on their own reality show, holding seances (like anyone in The House would actually willingly talk to these assholes) and spending a fortune on a cheap bit of crap that beeps anytime they walk into the second guest bedroom where the heating’s never worked right.



Kurt’s definitely in the first category.

Blaine—

No one’s totally sure _where_ Blaine fits.

 

**~**

 

Not everyone who dies in The House stays in The House. 

_Most_ do, but it’s one of the anomalies of science or faith that Sam’s never been able to wrap his head around, because sometimes they just…die.

Get their funerals and mourning and final moments.

Sam’s not totally sure which is the better option anymore.

 

**~**

 

The first time Sam hears Blaine sing, he sits down right there on the floor to listen. 

He’s the kind of great that belongs on radios and stages, and Sam’s always loved music but this is something _else_.

“Wow,” Rachel says, joining him, and normally Sam would be glad of the company, but right now he actually sorta wishes she’d go away. “He’s wonderful.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, because he is. He’s just doing the dishes and he sounds like he should be on Broadway or something.

“I wish we could duet,” Rachel says with a sigh, and Sam blinks and pretends the protective surge that shoots through him is just because he wouldn’t inflict Rachel’s perfectionism on anyone.

 

**~**

 

It seems stupid to say Blaine ‘finds’ his room, time making it Blaine’s place and all, but The House has always been weirdly protective of its long term residents.

Mostly the alive don’t go near the top floor; sometimes they’ll fill the house with guests and someone will get a bad night’s sleep, and sometimes they feel the urge to repaint, but generally they just seem to…forget about it. Tell people “Oh, we have more rooms then we know what to do with!” and leave it at that.

Even Kurt, in his quest to completely renovate, has avoided it since the Santana incident, and Sam doesn’t blame him.

Sam’s been letting himself drift in and out, stretched sideways across the bed he doesn’t need, when the door creaks open and Blaine peers in. He’s got this look on his face, all determination and curiosity, and Sam goes perfectly still and just watches, waits, and momentarily forgets he doesn’t need to breathe.

Blaine keeps his hands in his pockets as he inspects the room, and Sam’s struck with how respectful it is. He takes in everything, and when the loose floorboard creaks under his foot he steps back and stares at it, fighting an internal battle.

Sam knows he shouldn’t do it, but part of him wants to know what’ll happen and part of him—

Part of him just misses knowing someone living is thinking about him.

Blaine takes another step back as the wooden panel lifts up and settles again under Sam’s fingers, and Sam thinks about every horror movie he watched in his lifetime and is super impressed when Blaine doesn’t run away.

Blaine hesitates a while but eventually he kneels down, gently running his fingers over Sam’s measly pile of possessions, and Sam can almost feel it. There’s something awed and soft about the way Blaine picks everything up and puts it back, small puzzle pieces of something that once made up a life, and when he gets to the wallet and slides Sam’s school I.D. out Sam watches his face fall.

“Oh,” Blaine says, running the pad of his fingers across Sam’s face, and it’s not until the denim at his knees begins to feel damp that Sam realizes he’s crying. 

He hadn’t expected it to be like this.

“ _Sam,_ ” Blaine says, a whisper meant only for his own ears, and Sam feels dead for the first time in thirty years.

 

**~**

 

Sometimes, when Kurt’s not home, Blaine talks out loud.

At first none of them are totally sure what’s happening, and Sam wonders if maybe they haven’t accidentally driven him over the edge, but then he says, “I don’t really know what you do day in, day out. Should I get more books from the library? Someone seems to like romance novels,” and they realize he’s talking to _them_.

Outside of the amateur ghost hunters no one’s ever done that.

“Oh,” Quinn says, looking guiltily at the pile of harlequin paperbacks she’s been working through.

“Well,” Santana says.

Rachel’s shocked out of words entirely, and that’s a feat in itself.

Sam—

Sam really wishes he was alive.

 

**~**

 

Kurt and Blaine don’t fight often. Sure, they passive aggressively dance around each other a lot, but they don’t _fight_ , so when they do it’s loud and obnoxious and has The House residents huddled together because death makes insatiable gossips of them all in the end.

“We only just moved _in!_ ” Blaine shouts, arms wide whilst Kurt crosses his over his chest.

“So?” Kurt shouts back. “You didn’t even _like_ it here! This is a _great_ opportunity for me, Blaine, why can’t you see that?”

“Our lives are here, Kurt. Our _families_ are here!”

“Oh please,” Kurt scoffs, “like your family care.” 

He realizes what he’s said straight away but it’s too late to stop Blaine’s expression turning blank; even if he could, Kurt’s never seemed to be one for apologies, and Sam wants to make the whole house shake.

Kurt takes a deep breath. “We’ll talk about it in the morning when we’ve both calmed down a bit,” he says, and Blaine nods but can’t seem to look at him.

That night, Kurt sleeps in their bed.

Blaine—

Blaine sleeps in _Sam’s_ , and _God_ , that feels like _something_.

 

**~**

 

“Stop,” Santana says, and Sam blinks up at her and wonders what he’s supposed to have done now.

“Uh—” he starts, and Santana waves him off with a glare.

“Do you get how stupid it is to fall in love with the living?” she says, and Sam freezes and doesn’t look back at where Blaine’s curled under a blanket reading, enjoying a quiet night seemingly to himself. “All it leaves you with is more heartache, and God knows we have enough of that stuck around here.”

“Rachel does it all the time,” Sam says when he’s able to find his voice, and Santana gives him a look that says he’s just proved her point. He sighs. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.

“It’s not _worth_ it,” she says, and Sam wonders then if she’s talking from experience.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever be brave enough to ask.

 

**~**

 

“I looked you up,” Blaine says. It’s gone two a.m. and he’s lying on the couch, a blanket tucked around his legs. Sam’s been watching him try to sleep, and it’s beyond creepy but also he’s a _ghost_ so he figures creepy comes with the job description. The words jar him back to reality though, and he looks around, expecting Kurt to be somewhere and knowing he’s snoring softly in the master bedroom. 

“Who?” Sam asks, even though he knows Blaine can’t hear him.

“Samuel Evans, originally of Nashville, Tennessee. Born to Dwight and Mary Evans. Died…” His voice chokes off, and Sam crosses the room on his knees to grip the edge of the couch with shaking fingers. “Died March 1984 when a ceiling beam in the family’s new home gave way and crushed him as he pushed his little brother and sister to safety.” 

Sam knows.

 _Of course_ he knows.

But death does funny things to your mind, and not thinking about it, not _remembering_ , is part of the curse and part of the gift.

Blaine’s eyes are wet with tears, and it’s funny really that someone should be crying for him when he’s already been gone so long.

“I looked them up, too,” Blaine says, and he’s barely whispering now. Sam leans forward, forward, until they’re less than a breath apart. “Stevie and Stacey Evans. Stacey’s a defence lawyer in Washington and Stevie’s an English teacher in North Virginia. They’ve both got wives and two kids. I think Stevie must have won the coin toss to name his son Sam, but Stacey’s daughter’s middle name is Samantha.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, and it sounds like his heart’s breaking.

Sam rests his cheeks against Blaine’s chest and imagines Blaine can feel it.

 

**~**

 

“I wish I knew more,” Blaine says. Kurt’s just in the next room, on the phone to the Adam guy who’s name pops up uncomfortably often. Usually Blaine’s more careful about speaking to them when Kurt’s home—

( and it is to _them_ — Sam once caught him reading a particularly soppy romance novel out loud as Quinn sighed happily from her spot by the fire, and Rachel’s taken to leaving her scrapbooks where he’ll see them so he’ll come home with armfuls of classic Hollywood DVDs for her to moon over.

Even Santana’s taken to flipping the channel when Blaine’s watching TV until it lands on a Western or a sitcom, and Blaine’s started recording _The L Word_ reruns for her which is almost enough to make Santana like him. )

— but it’s almost as if he doesn’t care anymore. He and Kurt have been fighting, and that’s when they bother to talk. Kurt’s been staying later at work, and Blaine’s been trying _not_ to leave The House, and Sam wants to tell him to go out and live, but the selfish, lonely part of him wouldn’t even if he could.

“I wish I knew the important things,” Blaine says, “like what your favorite song is or what you wanted to do when you grew up. Who your last kiss was with.”

Sam’s lips feels impossibly dry.

“Can ghosts kiss?” Blaine asks, and Sam’s eyes drop to his lips, waiting, wishing, wanting.

“What a weird question,” Kurt says from the doorway and the moment’s gone.

 

**~**

 

Sometimes Sam wonders if The House only claims the people it really likes.

Rachel says he reads too much science fiction, but Sam can’t help but think of it as sentient. It’s either that or ‘cursed’ and Sam prefers to think they’re a morbid collection rather than a fated tragedy.

It’s why he should see it coming.

He doesn’t, though.

They really should have learned by now.

 

**~**

 

Kurt and Blaine break up.

It’s not angry in the end, just two tired men regretting how things turned out, and Sam thinks he shouldn’t be surprised by the last minute maturity but he is anyway.

No one cheated, no one ran scared, they just fell apart because neither of them really wanted it.

Kurt says they should sell the house and Blaine looks momentarily horrified, so different from the day he first stepped over the threshold, and Sam’s morbidly glad. He offers to buy Kurt out instead, and Kurt shrugs.

“I want some of the furniture,” he says, and Blaine gladly agrees.

Kurt moves out as quickly as he can pack his things, and calls Finn to bring a truck for the rest. Rachel runs to her room to fix her hair. 

There’s a chest of drawers in the main guest room, something big and ugly Kurt picked up at an antiques fair, and Kurt asks Blaine to bring it down so he can find room for it in the truck before it’s filled with lighter things, and Sam thinks Blaine agrees to stay out of the way as much as anything. It’s really too big for one person, and Blaine obviously doesn’t intend to try manoeuvring it down the stairs by himself, but then Kurt’s shouting something up about signing over the lease and Finn’s asking what the hell’s happening and Sam looks up a split second too late as Blaine’s foot catches and—

 

**~**

 

Sam remembers dying and then he remembers being, but he doesn’t remember the stage in between. He doesn’t remember the ambulance or the funeral or the mourning, doesn’t remember his parents packing up everything and moving the kids out of a house that could no longer ever be a home. He doesn’t remember any of that part.

None of them do.

It’s a kindness in something that could be unrelentingly cruel.

Everything else rushes by but for a while The House sits quiet.

 

**~**

 

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” Blaine says, looking down at his hands.

“Yes,” Santana says, because she’s been here too long for sugar coating. 

“Sorry,” Rachel says, though Sam’s convinced she’s already picked out sheet music for their first duet.

“It’s not so bad here,” Quinn says, laying a gentle hand on Blaine’s arm.

“ _Hi_ ,” Sam says, and Blaine’s eyes shoot up, _seeing him._

 

**~**

 

Blaine fits it well.

Obviously it’s been a transition, but time moves differently without the living around to anchor it and The House is the sort of place where everything that would have been is softened. Mostly they’ve been telling stories, getting to know each other outside the inflicted boundaries of mortality.

Rachel takes Blaine under her wing, laughing giddily when the police are called on a noise complaint and the nervous young officers spend all of three minutes scanning the house with flashlights before leaving, goosebumps littering their skin, and Quinn scolds her but can’t hide the smile tugging at her lips.

Santana tries to get Blaine to snap, and the first time he insults her she crows triumphantly and disappears for three days.

Quinn and Blaine makes up stories, the sort involving pirates and princes and farm boys, and sometimes lose themselves for hours in a joint imagination Sam can’t even begin to follow.

Sam and Blaine talk. Blaine asks him question after question and Sam humors him and answers them all, and when they run out of his history they start on Blaine’s. At night they sit on Sam’s bed and read through the comics Blaine managed to save, their knees barely touching, and Sam feels too hot and too cold and too alive.

“So,” Blaine says one morning when he’s been dead days or weeks or months, “ _can_ ghosts kiss?”

Sam looks at him in his maroon skinny jeans and cream shirt and feels The House around them, keeping them safe and just plain _keeping_ them.

“Not the living,” he says, leaning forward, “but, yeah, they can kiss other ghosts.”

“Thank God,” Blaine says, and closes the distance between them.

 

**~**

 


End file.
